XVII: Arran & XVIII: Mary of Guise

A Short History of Scotland, by Andrew Lang

Chapter XVII: Regency of Arran

The death of Cardinal
Beaton left Scotland and
the Church without a skilled and resolute defender. His successor in the see,
Archbishop Hamilton, a half-brother of the Regent, was more licentious than the
Cardinal (who seems to have been constant to Mariotte Ogilvy), and had little
of his political genius. The murderers, with others of their party, held
St Andrews Castle,
strong in its new fortifications, which the
queen-mother and Arran, the
Regent, were unable to reduce. Receiving supplies from England by sea, and
abetted by Henry VIII,
the murderers were in treaty with him to work all his will, while some nobles,
like Argyll and Huntly, wavered; though the Douglases now renounced their
compact with England, and their promise to give the child queen in marriage to
Henry's son. At the end of November, despairing of success in the siege, Arran
asked France to send men and ships to take
St Andrews Castle from the
assassins, who, in December, obtained an armistice. They would surrender, they
said, when they got a pardon for their guilt from the Pope; but they begged
Henry VIII to move the
Emperor to move the Pope to give no pardon! The remission, none the less,
arrived early in April 1547, but was mocked at by the garrison of the castle.

The garrison and inmates of the castle presently welcomed the
arrival of John Knox and some
of his pupils. Knox (born in
Haddington, 1513-1515?), a
priest and notary, had borne a two-handed sword and been of the body-guard of
Wishart. He was now
invited by John Rough, the chaplain, to take on him the office of preacher,
which he did, weeping, so strong was his sense of the solemnity of his duties.
He also preached and disputed with feeble clerical opponents in the town. The
congregation in the castle, though devout, were ruffianly in their lives, nor
did he spare rebukes to his flock.

Before Knox
arrived, Henry VIII and
Francis II had died; the successor of Francis, Henri II, sent to Scotland
Monsieur d'Oysel, who became the right-hand man of
Mary of Guise in the
Government. Meanwhile the advance of an English force against the Border, where
they occupied Langholm, caused Arran to lead thither the national levies. But
this gave no great relief to the besieged in the
castle of St Andrews.
In mid-July a well-equipped French fleet swept up the east coast; men were
landed with guns; French artillery was planted on the cathedral roof and the
steeple of St Salvator's College, and poured a plunging fire into the castle.
In a day or two, on the last of July, the garrison surrendered. Knox, with many
of his associates, was placed in the galleys and carried captive to France. On
one occasion the galleys were within sight of
St Andrews, and the Reformer
predicted (so he says) that he would again preach there - as he did, to some
purpose.

But the castle had not fallen before the English party among the
nobles had arranged to betray Scottish fortresses to England; and to lead 2000
Scottish "favourers of the Word of God" to fight under the flag of St George
against their country. An English host of 15,000 was assembled, and marched
north accompanied by a fleet. On the 9th of September 1547 the leader,
Somerset, found the Scottish army occupying a well-chosen position near
Musselburgh: on their
left lay the Firth, on their front a marsh and the river Esk. But next day the
Scots, as when Cromwell defeated them at
Dunbar, left an impregnable
position in their eagerness to cut Somerset off from his ships, and were routed
with great slaughter in the battle of Pinkie. Somerset made no great use of his
victory: he took and held Broughty Castle on Tay,
fortified Inchcolme in the Firth of Forth, and devastated Holyrood. Mischief he
did, to little purpose.

The child
queen was conveyed to an isle in the
loch of Menteith,
where she was safe, and her marriage with the Dauphin was negotiated. In June
1548 a large French force under the Sieur d'Essé arrived, and later
captured Haddington, held
by the English, while, despite some Franco-Scottish successes in the field,
Mary was sent with her
Four Maries to France, where she landed in August, the only passenger who had
not been sea-sick! By April 1550 the English made peace, abandoning all their
holds in Scotland. The great essential prize, the
child queen, had escaped
them.

The clergy burned a martyr in 1550; in 1549 they had passed
measures for their own reformation: too late and futile was the scheme. Early
in 1549 Knox returned from
France to England, where he was minister at
Berwick and at
Newcastle, a chaplain of the child Edward VI., and a successful opponent of
Cranmer as regards kneeling at the celebration of the Holy Communion. He
refused a bishopric, foreseeing trouble under Mary Tudor, from whom he fled to
the Continent. In 1550-51 Mary
of Guise, visiting France, procured for Arran the Duchy of
Châtelherault, and for his eldest son the command of the Scottish Archer
Guard, and, by way of exchange, in 1554 took from him the Regency, surrounding
herself with French advisers, notably De Roubay and d'Oysel.

Chapter XVIII: Regency of Mary of Guise

In England, on the death of Edward VI, Catholicism rejoiced in the
accession of Mary Tudor, which, by driving Scottish Protestant refugees back
into their own country, strengthened there the party of revolt against the
Church, while the queen-mother's preference of French over Scottish advisers,
and her small force of trained French soldiers in garrisons, caused even the
Scottish Catholics to hold France in fear and suspicion. The French counsellors
(1556) urged increased taxation for purposes of national defence against
England; but the nobles would rather be invaded every year than tolerate a
standing army in place of their old irregular feudal levies. Their own
independence of the Crown was dearer to the nobles and gentry than safety from
their old enemy. They might have reflected that a standing army of Scots,
officered by themselves, would be a check on the French soldiers in garrison.

Perplexed and opposed by the great clan of Hamilton, whose chief,
Arran, was nearest heir to the crown,
Mary of Guise was now
anxious to conciliate the Protestants, and there was a "blink," as the
Covenanters later said, - a lull in persecution.

After Knox's
release from the French galleys in 1549, he had played, as we saw, a
considerable part in the affairs of the English Church, and in the making of
the second Prayer-Book of Edward VI, but had fled abroad on the accession of
Mary Tudor. From Dieppe he had sent a tract to England, praying God to stir up
some Phineas or Jehu to shed the blood of "abominable idolaters," - obviously
of Mary of England and Philip of Spain. On earlier occasions he had followed
Calvin in deprecating such sanguinary measures. The Scot, after a stormy period
of quarrels with Anglican refugees in Frankfort, moved to Geneva, where the
city was under a despotism of preachers and of Calvin. Here
Knox found the model of Church
government which, in a form if possible more extreme, he later planted in
Scotland.

There, in 1549-52, the Church, under Archbishop Hamilton,
Beaton's successor, had
been confessing her iniquities in Provincial Councils, and attempting to purify
herself on the lines of the tolerant and charitable Catechism issued by the
Archbishop in 1552. Apparently a modus vivendi was
being sought, and Protestants were inclined to think that they might be
"occasional conformists" and attend Mass without being false to their
convictions. But in this brief lull Knox came over to Scotland at the
end of harvest, in 1555. On this point of occasional conformity he was fixed.
The Mass was idolatry, and idolatry, by the law of God, was a capital offence.
Idolaters must be converted or exterminated; they were no better than
Amalekites.

This was the central rock of
Knox's position: tolerance was
impossible. He remained in Scotland, preaching and administering the Sacrament
in the Genevan way, till June 1556. He associated with the future leaders of
the religious revolution: Erskine of Dun, Lord Lorne (in 1558, fifth Earl of
Argyll), James Stewart, bastard of
James V, and lay Prior of
St Andrews, and of Macon in
France; and the Earl of Glencairn. William Maitland of Lethington, "the flower
of the wits of Scotland," was to Knox a less congenial
acquaintance. Not till May 1556 was Knox summoned to trial in
Edinburgh, but he had a
strong backing of the laity, as was the custom in Scotland, where justice was
overawed by armed gatherings, and no trial was held. By July 1556 he was in
France, on his way to Geneva.

The fruits of Knox's labours followed him, in
March 1557, in the shape of a letter, signed by Glencairn, Lorne, Lord Erskine,
and James Stewart, Mary's bastard brother. They prayed
Knox to return. They were ready
"to jeopardy lives and goods in the forward setting of the glory of God." This
has all the air of risking civil war.
Knox was not eager. It was
October before he reached Dieppe on his homeward way. Meanwhile there had been
hostilities between England and Scotland (as ally of France, then at odds with
Philip of Spain, consort King of England), and there were Protestant tumults in
Edinburgh.
Knox had scruples as to raising
civil war by preaching at home. The Scottish nobles had no zeal for the English
war; but Knox, who received at Dieppe discouraging letters from unknown
correspondents, did not cross the sea. He remained at Dieppe, preaching, till
the spring of 1558.

In Knox's absence
even James Stewart and Erskine of Dun agreed to hurry on the marriage between
Mary, Queen of Scots, and
Francis, Dauphin of France, a feeble boy, younger than herself. Their faces are
pitiably young as represented in their coronation medal.

While negotiations for the marriage were begun in October, on
December 3, 1557, a godly "band" or covenant for mutual aid was signed by
Argyll (then near his death, in 1558); his son, Lorne; the Earl of Morton (son
of the traitor, Sir George Douglas); Glencairn; and Erskine of Dun, one of the
commissioners who were to visit France for the Royal marriage. They vow to risk
their lives against "the Congregation of Satan" (the Church), and in defence of
faithful Protestant preachers. They will establish "the blessed Word of God and
His Congregation," and henceforth the Protestant party was commonly styled "The
Congregation."

Parliament (November 29, 1557) had accepted the French marriage,
all the ancient liberties of Scotland being secured, and the right to the
throne, if Mary died
without issue, being confirmed to the House of Hamilton, not to the Dauphin.
The marriage-contract (April 19, 1558) did ratify these just demands; but, on
April 4, Mary had been
induced to sign them all away to France, leaving Scotland and her own claims to
the English crown to the French king.

The marriage was celebrated on April 24, 1558. In that week the
last Protestant martyr, Walter Milne, an aged priest and a married man, was
burned for heresy at St
Andrews. This only increased the zeal of the Congregation.

Among the Protestant preachers then in Scotland, of whom Willock,
an Englishman, seems to have been the most reasonable, a certain Paul Methuen,
a baker, was prominent. He had been summoned (July 28) to stand his trial for
heresy, but his backing of friends was considerable, and they came before
Mary of Guise in armour and
with a bullying demeanour. She tried to temporise, and on September 3 a great
riot broke out in Edinburgh,
the image of St Giles was broken, and the mob violently assaulted a procession
of priests. The country was seething with discontent, and the death of Mary
Tudor (November 17, 1558), with the accession of the Protestant Elizabeth,
encouraged the Congregation. Mary of Guise made large
concessions: only she desired that there should be no public meetings in the
capital. On January 1, 1559, church doors were placarded with "The Beggars'
Warning." The Beggars (really the Brethren in their name) claimed the wealth of
the religious orders. Threats were pronounced, revolution was menaced at a
given date, Whitsunday, and the threats were fulfilled.

All this was the result of a plan, not of accident.
Mary of Guise was intending
to visit France, not longing to burn heretics. But she fell into the worst of
health, and her recovery was doubted, in April 1559. Willock and Methuen had
been summoned to trial (February 2, 1559), for their preachings were always apt
to lead to violence on the part of their hearers. The summons was again
postponed in deference to renewed menaces: a Convention had met at
Edinburgh to seek for some
remedy, and the last Provincial Council of the Scottish Church (March 1559) had
considered vainly some proposals by moderate Catholics for internal reform.

Again the preachers were summoned to
Stirling for May 10, but just
a week earlier Knox arrived in Scotland. The leader of the French Protestant
preachers, Morel, expressed to Calvin his fear that
Knox "may fill Scotland with
his madness." Now was his opportunity: the Regent was weak and ill; the
Congregation was in great force; England was at least not unfavourable to its
cause. From DundeeKnox marched with many
gentlemen - unarmed, he says - accompanying the preachers to
Perth: Erskine of Dun went as an
envoy to the Regent at Stirling; she is accused by
Knox of treacherous dealing
(other contemporary Protestant evidence says nothing of treachery); at all
events, on May 10 the preachers were outlawed for non-appearance to stand their
trial. The Brethren, "the whole multitude with their preachers," says Knox, who
were in Perth were infuriated, and,
after a sermon from the Reformer, wrecked the church, sacked the monasteries,
and, says Knox, denounced death against any priest who celebrated Mass (a
circumstance usually ignored by our historians), at the same time protesting,
"We require nothing but liberty of conscience"!

On May 31 a composition was made between the Regent and the
insurgents, whom Argyll and James Stewart promised to join if the Regent broke
the conditions. Henceforth the pretext that she had broken faith was made
whenever it seemed convenient, while the Congregation permitted itself a godly
liberty in construing the terms of treaties. A "band" was signed for "the
destruction of idolatry" by Argyll, James Stewart, Glencairn, and others; and
the Brethren scattered from Perth,
breaking down altars and "idols" on their way home.
Mary of Guise had promised
not to leave a French garrison in Perth. She did leave some Scots in
French pay, and on this slim pretext of her treachery, Argyll and James Stewart
proclaimed the Regent perfidious, deserted her cause, and joined the crusade
against "idolatry."

Note

It is far from my purpose to represent
Mary of Guise as a kind of
stainless Una with a milk-white lamb. I am apt to believe that she caused to be
forged a letter, which she attributed to Arran. See my "John
Knox and the
Reformation," pp. 280,
281, where the evidence is discussed. But the critical student of Knox's
Chapters on these events, generally accepted as historical evidence, cannot but
perceive his personal hatred of Mary of Guise, whether shown
in thinly veiled hints that Cardinal
Beaton was her paramour;
or in charges of treacherous breach of promise, which rest primarily on his
word. Again, that "the Brethren" wrecked the religious houses of
Perth is what he reports to a lady,
Mrs Locke; that "the rascal multitude" was guilty is the tale he tells "to all
Europe" in his History. I have done my best to compare Knox's stories with
contemporary documents, including his own letters. These documents throw a
lurid light on his versions of events, as given in this part of his History,
which is merely a partisan pamphlet of autumn 1559. The evidence is criticised
in my " John Knox and the
Reformation," pp.
107-157 (1905). Unhappily the letter of
Mary of Guise to Henri II,
after the outbreak at Perth, is
missing from the archives of France.